'Arina, stop talking like an old peasant woman,' I told her. 'You were speaking perfectly normally before.'
'I was in disguise,' Arina declared without batting an eyelid. 'Oh, very well. But you have to drop that bureaucratic tone too.'
She rapidly covered the entire sheet with close, neat handwriting. Then handed it to me.
She wasn't as old as I'd been expecting. Less than two hundred years. Her mother had been a peasant, her father was unknown, none of her relatives were Others. She had been initiated as a girl of eleven by a Dark Magician or, as Arina stubbornly referred to him, a sorcerer. Someone not local, German in origin. At the same time he had deflowered and abused her, which for some reason she found necessary to write down, adding 'the lascivious wretch'. So that was it. This 'German' had taken her as his servant and student – in every respect. Evidently he hadn't been too bright or too gentle – by the age of thirteen the girl had acquired enough power to vanquish her mentor in a fair duel and dematerialise him. And he had been a fourth-grade magician, by the way. After that she had come under the surveillance of the Watches of that time. But she had no other criminal acts in her record – if her statement was to be believed, that is. She didn't like cities, she had lived in villages and made her living by using petty witchcraft.
After the revolution several attempts had been made to 'dekulakise her' as part of the communists war against rich peasants . . . the peasants had realised she was a witch and decided to set the Soviet Secret Police onto her. Mausers and magic, would you believe it! Magic had won out, but things couldn't go on like that forever. In 1931 Arina had . . .
I looked up at the witch and asked:
'Seriously?'
'I went into hibernation,' Arina said calmly. 'I realised the red plague was going to last a long time. I could have chosen to sleep for six, eighteen or sixty years. We witches always have to take a lot of conditions into account. Six years or eighteen was too short for the communists. I went to sleep for sixty years.'
She hesitated, and then confessed:
'It was here that I slept. I protected my hut as securely as I could, so that no human being or Other could come close.'
Now I understood. Those were bad times. Others were killed almost as often as ordinary people. It wasn't too hard to go missing.
'You didn't tell anyone you were sleeping here?' I asked. 'None of your friends . . .'
Arina laughed:
'If I'd told anyone, you wouldn't be here talking to me, Light One.'
'Why?'
She nodded towards the bookcase:
'That's my entire fortune. And it's a substantial one. A great temptation.'
I folded the statement and put it in my pocket. Then I said:
'It is. But there's still one rare book I didn't spot.'
'Which one?' the witch asked in surprise.
'Fuaran.'
Arina snorted.
'Such a big boy, and you believe in fairy stories . . .There is no such book.'
'Aha. And the little girl made up that title all on her own.'
'I didn't clear her memory,' Arina sighed. 'Tell me, after that what's the point in doing good deeds?'
'Where's the book?' I asked sharply.
'Third shelf down, fourth volume from the left,' Arina said irritably. 'Did you leave your eyes at home?'
I walked across to the bookcase
Fuaran!
Written in big gold letters on black leather.
I took the book out and looked triumphantly at the witch.
Arina was smiling.
I looked at the title on the front cover – Fuaran: fantasy or fact? The word 'Fuaran' was in large print, the others were smaller.
I looked at the spine.
Now I saw it. The smaller letters had faded and crumbled away.
'A rare book,' Arina admitted. 'Thirteen copies were printed in St Petersburg in 1913, at the printing works of His Imperial Highness. Printed properly, at night when the moon was full. I don't know how many of them have survived.'
Could a frightened little girl have seen only the single word printed in big letters?
Of course she could!
'What's going to happen to me now?' Arina asked woefully. 'What rights do I have?'
I sighed, sat down at the table and turned the pages of the 'fake Fuaran'. It was an interesting book, no doubt about it.
'Nothing's going to happen to you,' I told her. 'You helped the children. The Night Watch is grateful to you for that.'